New York City

The family of Eric Garner, who died in police custody following his arrest on charges of selling black market cigarettes on city streets, have been awarded a $5.9 million from New York City to settle the family’s wrongful-death claim in the Staten Island death last July the city comptroller and a lawyer for the family said.

The agreement, reached just days before the anniversary of Mr. Garner’s death, put to rest any potential legal battle that may have taken place even as a federal inquiry into the killing and several others at the state and local level remain open.

The settlement comes following a case that threatened to ignite street riots after two New York City police officers approached Mr. Garner on July 17, 2014 on a city sidewalk and accused him of selling untaxed cigarettes.

Garner, who was known to police for selling black market cigarettes and had arrested him for violating untaxed cigarette sales laws dozens of times, decided to resist arrest leading arresting officers to place him in a “chokehold” – a restraint technique prohibited under Police Department policy – to subdue him. The city medical examiner cited the chokehold as a cause of Mr. Garner’s death.

Despite the finding, a Staten Island grand jury’s decision not to indict the officer who used the chokehold fueled weeks of demonstrations – protests that ceased after two police officers in Brooklyn were fatally shot by a man who suggested he was avenging Garner’s death.

Garner’s relatives, including his widow, Esaw Garner, and his mother, Gwen Carr, filed a notice of claim against the city – a precursor step to filing a lawsuit. The notice said the family was seeking $75 million in damages which is when negotiations with city comptroller’s office began.

Speaking about the settlement, City Comptroller Scott M. Stringer said:

“Mr. Garner’s death is a touchstone in our city’s history and in the history of the entire nation.” “Financial compensation is certainly not everything, and it can’t bring Mr. Garner back. But it is our way of creating balance and giving a family a certain closure.”

The family had given the city a deadline of Friday, the anniversary of the death, to come to an agreement or the relatives would move forward with the lawsuit.

The agreement came after months of negotiations and is among the biggest settlements ever reached between claimants and the city. It is Mr. Stringer’s practice to settle major civil rights claims even before a lawsuit is filed. His aim is to save taxpayers the expense, and families the pain, of a long legal process.

Garner’s relatives were expected to discuss the settlement at the Harlem offices of the National Action Network, led by the Rev. Al Sharpton. “This is not about people getting money,” Mr. Sharpton said on Monday. “This is about justice. We’ve got to restructure our police departments and how we deal with policing nationwide.”

There was no mention of the revenge deaths of two police officers who were killed assassination style last December while sitting in a police car on an otherwise quite Brooklyn street.

New York City is quickly falling into chaos–simply because their most liberal mayor in decades, Bill de Blasio, refuses to do his job in keeping his city safe.

Murders are up nearly 20% in 2015. It’s been on the rise for the past two year–the first time that’s happened in decades. De Blasio only took office in 2013–the uptick in murders began almost exactly when he took office.

Leaders on both sides of the aisles are beginning for the far-Left mayor to do something to stop the sudden uptick of crime in their neighborhoods.

Even Natasha Christopher, the mother of a 14-year-old boy who was shot in the back of the head in Brooklyn, pleaded with the mayor:

“Please do something to save lives,” Christopher said. “There are more children dying. There are parents burying their children when it shouldn’t be happening.”

De Blasio’s latest idea? “Get a lot of guns away from the bad guys.”

Of course, the problem is New York City already has some of the strongest gun laws in the nation.

The bigger culprit is that the far-Left de Blasio has been famously soft on crime. Last year, he cheered on supporters who were later chanting, “What do we want? Dead cops!” And his relationship with NYPD got so frosty in the aftermath that, when he attended a funeral for a murdered NYPD officer, officers turned their backs to him.

De Blasio also controversially stopped NYPD’s “stop, question, and frisk” policy–which gave NYPD the jurisdiction it needed to question people who looked like they were up to no good.

That policy, which was a fixture of the last two decades under Mayors Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg, was widely credited with helping restore New York City to its former luster. Before Giuliani took office and overhauled how NYPD dealt with crime, even Midtown Manhattan–one of the most expensive neighborhoods in the world these days–was wrought with violence and mayhem.

De Blasio deemed the policy “racist.”

Except now his criticism is coming from leaders in the African-American community too–who are fed up with high crime and no action, no matter how much the mayor sugarcoats it.

Rev. Calvin Butts of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem slammed the mayor for high crime.

“The mayor needs to pay attention,” he said. “…People will organize against him.”

Dominique Sharpton, daughter of world-class shakedown artist Al Sharpton, is suing New York City because she sprained her ankle last October on the corner of Broome Street and Broadway in New York City.

According to her lawsuit, she $5 million from the city for being “severely injured, bruised and wounded” when she tripped over uneven pavement at the corner of Broome Street and Broadway downtown last year and that taxpayers need to compensate her for the pain and inconvenience caused by the sprain.

According to a New York Post report, Ms. Sharpton is:

“Currently on vacation in Bali, the membership director for her gadfly dad’s National Action Network claims she “still suffers and will continue to suffer for some time physical pain and bodily injuries,” according to the suit filed against the city departments of Transportation and Environmental Protection.”

“And despite claiming “permanent physical pain” in a breathless notice of claim in December, at around the same time there were social-media shots of her in high heels and fancy dresses and climbing a ladder to decorate a Christmas tree.”

In her lawsuit, Ms. Sharpton wants to be compensated for “loss of quality of life, future pain and suffering, future medical bills, [and] future diminution of income.”

In the weeks that followed the tumble, Ms. Sharpton was seen in a walking boot but by December, she seemed well enough to participate in the National Action Network’s “Justice for All” march in Washington, DC as well as a New Year’s Eve trip to Miami Beach. Photo’s also show her climbing a ladder to decorate a Christmas tree.

Broken sidewalks, rough pavement, potholes and other street hazards can be a windfall for pedestrians. One woman, Denise Giles, won a $2.25 million settlement from the city after suing the city’s Health and Hospitals Corp. for failing to fix a broken sidewalk outside one of its clinics.

Her claim was one of 885 that were settled by the city over the past two years for a total of $60 million. Ms. Sharpton said she fell in a crosswalk making her complaint a “defective roadway” claim. Other injuries described by Ms. Sharpton include:

“…internal and external injuries to the whole body, lower and upper limbs, the full extent of which are unknown, permanent pain and mental anguish.”

“…multiple ligament and tendon tears” and “has not had any involvement in selecting a figure that would be fair and adequate compensation for her pain and suffering. The number was selected by my firm and is meant as a safeguard for Ms. Sharpton in a worst-case scenario.”

Ms. Sharpton may have gravely hurt her claim by using social media like Twitter and Instagram to describe her travel and her activities following the alleged accident in addition to a “lol” (laugh out loud) comment describing her lawsuit she posted on social media.